IIT Kanpur celebrated the Institute Foundational Day on 2nd November as it successfully completed 58 glorious years of excellence in science and technology. While we look forward to another year, we take inspiration from some of our alumni who have shown excellence in their respective fields.Our institute recognized its pre-eminent alumni with the Distinguished Alumni Award on this occasion. The Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest award instituted by the Board of Governors, given to alumni for outstanding achievements. This year the award was given to the following alumni :

Prof. Rajeev Alur

Prof. Rajeev Alur (BT/CSE/87), also awarded with the President Gold Medal, did his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University after completing his B.Tech at IIT Kanpur. He is currently designated as a Zisman Family Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also served as a chair of the Special Interest Group of Embedded Systems.

Mr. Rahul Gautam

Mr. Rahul Gautam (BT/CHE/75) received his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from IIT Kanpur and obtained his master’s degree from the Polytechnic University of New York. He founded Sheela Foam Pvt. Ltd. in 1971 which manufactures flexible polyurethane foam and products like mattresses, pillows and cushions marketed under the brand name ‘Sleepwell’.

Prof. Sangram Mudali

Prof. Sangram Mudali (BT/ME/85) obtained his an MS degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Houston, USA, in 1987 after completing his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur. He is currently the director of the National Institute of Science & Technology, India. He has been involved in bringing educational opportunities to the poor and meritorious students of South Odisha through Diganta. The school provides free education with free lodging and boarding to over 500 tribal students from poorest districts of Odisha. It is the second largest school for tribal students in the non-government sector.

Ms. Anjali Joshi

Ms. Anjali Joshi (BT/EE/81) is currently the VP of Product Management at Google managing Google’s fiber to communities effort, which will bring ultra high-speed broadband access to people across the US.

Prof. Anil Jain

Prof. Anil K. Jain (BT/EE/69) obtained his an MS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston, USA, in 1987 after completing his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur. He is one of the key contributors to the technology that has built the world’s first-ever three-dimensional fingerprint technology.

Mr. Vikas Kumar

The Satyendra K. Dubey Memorial Award was awarded to Mr. Vikas Kumar (BT/CE/97), a courageous and brave IPS officer who is credited with uprooting the menace of illegal mining in Eastern Rajasthan region. The content of this article has been taken from the DoRA website, iitk. We are using our page as a platform to highlight the achievements of our alumni.

Vox Populi

Vox is the student media body of IIT Kanpur. We aim to be the voice of campus community, and act as a bridge between faculty, students, alumni and other stakeholders of IIT Kanpur. Write to us at [email protected]